Harry and Barney stood as the woman moved slowly but gracefully notwithstanding that huge belly. Barney pulled a chair over next to the desk and the woman sat down in it with a huge sigh. Her man—lover? husband?—stood behind her, huge hands on her shoulders.
Harry frowned at her. “What are you doing in the office when you’re going to pop the kid any second?”
She sighed again. “Yes, but I’m just finishing up a huge job and I wanted to clear the decks so I can take a couple of weeks off after the birth.”
“Couple of months,” the man behind her growled. It was protective, and endearing, even though he was scowling and looked quite frightening, almost as frightening as Barney, but the woman just laughed. “Weeks. I can do some work from home in the beginning, Sam.”
The man behind her—Sam?—huffed out a breath of exasperation through his nostrils, like a bull. The woman laughed again.
Sam looked at Bolt. “So what do we have here? Why’d you call Nicole?”
Ah. The beautiful woman’s name was Nicole.
“As long as Nicole’s here, I thought maybe she could help us.” Bolt handed her the thumb drive.
She looked at it curiously. “What’s on it?”
“I don’t know. It’s Russian, encrypted. And the files inside are probably Russian. You know Russian, don’t you?”
“A little. Enough to get the gist of a text.”
“And you told me you have this Russian computer whiz on your list of collaborators. Does technical translations. Do you think—”
“Oh yes.” Nicole smiled and Consuelo blinked. How could any woman a hundred months pregnant be so very beautiful? “Yes indeed. I think he’s just the man for the job. Is it urgent?”
“There might be information on the drive about the men who attacked Chloe.”
There was an electric silence.
Nicole held her hand out as if knowing that her husband’s hand would find it, and it did. He lifted her out of the chair.
“Then we’ll find out what’s on this drive just as fast as humanly possible,” Nicole declared, holding her hand out for the small drive. Her face had turned serious. “Harry, I’m confiscating your other computer.”
He nodded as Nicole sat down before a sleek laptop. She opened it, and with a beep it started up, the glow of the screen reflected on Nicole’s face. In a second, she was gone.
Nicole was deep into whatever she was doing, staring intently at the monitor, typing quickly, stopping, then starting again.
“Okay,” she said, sitting back, rubbing her belly. “I sent it off to my crazy cracker Russian friend Rudy. He never sleeps. He took a look and said it shouldn’t take long. He called it ‘Mafiya’ encryption, he’s used to it. Do you have a clue as to what’s in it?”
“It’s got something important in it, that’s for sure,” Bolt replied. He nodded to Consuelo. “She took it off the guy who ordered the attack on Chloe. The guy who waterboarded her.”
“Waterboarded?” Nicole straightened, wincing. She held out her hand and her husband took it, gently helped her out of the chair.
Nicole walked over to her and put her hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going back to those horrible men.”
“That’s for damned sure,” her husband said. Bolt and Barney nodded.
Consuelo’s throat was tight, raw. She couldn’t speak, shook her head. “No.” Her voice came out like the sound a wounded animal would make. “Never.”
This was her opportunity. This is what she came for. But she couldn’t get the words out. All four of them watched her, three men, one woman, waiting with blank expressions for her to speak.
Consuelo had been trained in a hard school to repress her feelings, otherwise she couldn’t function in the Meteor. Some nights she repressed them so far down she thought they’d disappeared.
They hadn’t.
They’d compressed into a hard, black ball that was choking her.
The four continued watching her, waiting.
She had to do this. She had to, because there was no going back. She’d rather die.
“I—I hope there is something useful in that flash drive,” she said finally, voice thick and strained. “I hope there is something that will hurt the Russian, put him away. Because he is the one after Chloe. I brought it as payment. Partial payment. Because they say—they say you can help women go away. Disappear. And never be found.” Please, she prayed to the God she no longer believed in. “And I have money, too.” She hid the shaking in her hands as she pulled out a fat manila envelope. She watched Bolt’s eyes as she slid it across his desk. He was watching her, not the money. “Twenty thousand dollars,” she whispered. “To take me away.”
Was it enough? She had no idea. All she knew was that she might as well have pushed her beating heart across the table.
Harry Bolt placed one big hand on the envelope and paused. Did he want more? Could she get more? Not by working at the Meteor, of course. Maybe she could waitress, but where? Anywhere in San Diego and Nikitin and Sands and their men would find her.
Her heart nearly stopped when Bolt moved his hand with the envelope underneath it back across the desk to her. “We can’t take your money, Consuelo.”
But of course, how could he accept the money of a puta? He was a respectable man in a respectable business. Rich and powerful, even. What had she been thinking? She’d been around rich men long enough. Her life savings was probably what he spent for Christmas presents for his wife, if he had one. Of course he had no use for her tainted money.
He’d just condemned her to death.
She should get up and walk out and go . . . where? Her legs wouldn’t hold her, she knew that. What could she do, where would she go? She couldn’t even think beyond the panic in her mind, flashing nightmare scenes of drowning.
Consuelo wheezed in a breath.
Bolt was saying something but she couldn’t hear anything over the noise in her head. “What?”
He repeated patiently. “We don’t take money from the women and children we help. Disappearing takes some time and preparation. For the next few days we’ll put you in a very safe place while we prepare some documents for you, for your new life. You’ll be safe, I promise. Barney will look out for you. Nobody will hurt you.”
Her eyes shot to Barney. He held her gaze and nodded his head, as if to confirm what Bolt had said.
No one will hurt you.
“Where would you like to go?”
A blank. A complete blank. She hadn’t even considered choosing a place. She just thought she’d run, like a piece of tumbleweed rolling in the wind, and stop when the wind stopped.
She could choose?
“Miami.” The word came from nowhere, but the instant it left her mouth, it felt good. Right. “I’d like to go to Miami.”
“Good choice. Lots of Hispanic Americans. Big cities are good to hide in. We’ll prepare new documents for you and a background story. Keep a low profile and after a year or two you’ll start to feel like this new person.”
Please.
“We’ll open a bank account for you in Miami under your new name and put another ten thousand in it for you. With what you have, it should be enough for a while. Wait a few months and then you can look for a job. Waitressing, or shop assistant. Nothing too fancy.”
Consuelo was almost beyond words. She shook her head numbly. No, nothing too fancy.
The Meteor was fancy. She wanted to be as far away from fancy as possible. Far away from the false luxury and sharp smells of expensive perfumes and liquors. She wanted a small, spare apartment that was just for her, normal clothes, she wanted to take long walks in the park and watch TV and sleep alone at night. She wanted that so much she shook with it.
And the people in this room were going to give it to her.
“Thank you,” she said. She blinked, and the tears began. “Thank you so much. You’ve given me my life back.”
Nicole rose, with the help of the rough-looking man who never left her si
de, and walked toward her. This beautiful, elegant woman. A lady.
She put her hand on Consuelo’s shoulder. “You thank yourself, Consuelo. You got yourself out of this situation. We’re just helping. Follow the instructions you’ll receive from Harry and from Barney and you will be fine. We all wish you well in your new life.”
Consuelo placed her hand over Nicole’s without thinking, then, appalled at herself, tried to pull it back. But Nicole had grasped it, and wouldn’t let go.
“Good luck,” she said, bending down to whisper in Consuelo’s ear, and it was like a benediction.
Barney was at a side door, holding it open.
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice so deep it reverberated in her stomach. Or maybe it was the word. So insignificant. So important.
Consuelo rose and walked out the door.
The man who’d been fucking Chloe Mason on the balcony drove away. Nikitin watched the vehicle drive up from the underground parking lot. The side windows were smoked but the front windshield was clear and gave him an excellent view of the man’s face, which he’d last seen sweating as he humped the woman.
Chloe Mason was alone. And Chloe Mason was going to get him his thumb drive back.
He was going to need his trunk, and he was going to need Dmitri. But first he emailed Pirat.
Find coordinates of flat empty landscape around San Diego.
The answer came immediately.
Exceeded retainer.
Pizdets! Fuck!
Nikitin kept Pirat on retainer. And yes, he’d exceeded it. Gritting his teeth, he transferred $10,000 from his Bahamian account to Pirat’s account in Goa.
Happy now? he thought sourly. But he didn’t text it.
Three minutes later he had a set of coordinates, satellite photographs from 10,000 meters altitude, 5,000, 1,000, 500, 100, and so close he could read license plate numbers if there were cars around. There were none. It was a desert. Anza-Borrego Desert was written in white script along the bottom of the 1,000-meter resolution photo. Though his iPhone screen was small, Pirat had provided extensive maps and Nikitin spent ten minutes scrolling through them. Pirat had also provided a map with a course set in a blue line leading to the desert.
He made calculations in his head. If he drove fast, he could make it to the desert in forty minutes. It would give him time to set up the handover.
He called Dmitri, gave him the coordinates of where he was, told him to bring the trunk and to park two condo buildings down from La Torre.
While he waited, he watched the apartment on the fourth floor. The curtains in one room—the bedroom?—were drawn, but the rest of the apartment, which stretched out over five rooms, all connected by one balcony, with a small, separate balcony where the two had fucked, was open. He could see the woman moving around occasionally.
His jaw was aching and his fingers clenched the binoculars so hard it was a surprise he wasn’t denting the metal. Sweat trickled down his back.
Nikitin was a soldier, and a good one. He’d been Spetsnaz for fourteen years, in the Vympel, the best of the best.
He’d been in combat, fought numerous firefights in Africa and Chechnya. But going into combat, if you were good—and he was—you had a chance of survival.
Not here. If he was not able to produce the thumb drive when the vory came over for the auction, he was a dead man. And his death would be long and lingering.
It wouldn’t even be personal. The vory knew they’d have to make a lesson out of him for others who might be careless with several million dollars’ worth of information. The lesson would be a death with an epic amount of pain, every minute filmed, as an object lesson.
He was developing a plan on the fly with very little intel, in a foreign country, with one operative. All because of that bitch up there in her fancy condo, talking rebellion to the prostitutes.
Nikitin kept a close control on his emotions at all times. He had moved in dangerous circles all his life. His father had been shot for sedition when he refused to take his men in on a suicide mission in Afghanistan.
Nikitin knew how dangerous the world was, knew it in his bones and his blood. That he now found himself on the knife’s edge of a horrible death because of the meddling of some fucking woman made him shake with rage.
If it were up to him, he’d fucking walk into that apartment and blow her head apart, and for a second, for one uncontrollable second, he wanted to do that so badly he trembled with it.
But then a lifetime of discipline descended upon him once more, enclosing him in its hard embrace. It was like his brain had had static for a moment, bad reception, but now was back in tune.
He saw clearly what had to be done and how he would do it and saw that if he did it clean and fast there might be a way out of this. With some luck, which had to begin turning his way again, the vory would never know what had happened.
He could, perhaps, explain away the disappearance of the two men assigned him by reporting the loss of a considerable sum of cash. The two men had embezzled the money and disappeared, probably south to Tijuana. Nikitin could promise the vory that as soon as the new transaction was over he’d track them down and get the money back.
But for now, he had to get his hands on Chloe Mason.
Dmitri was parking about 500 meters away. Nikitin carefully scanned the horizon, 360 degrees. There was no one observing him, no one on the balconies of the luxury condo, no one out for a walk. This was a residential neighborhood and most of the inhabitants were at work.
The binoculars went into his backpack, then he rose and strolled up to the sidewalk, just a man taking a morning break and getting some exercise.
He walked past Dmitri, watching carefully for onlookers, then doubled back, knocking on the driver’s side window. It buzzed down.
“Did you get everything?” Nikitin asked, voice low. In answer, Dmitri unlocked the back of the vehicle.
Nikitin made a quick inventory. He prepared two backpacks, for him and Dmitri. GSh-18s with suppressors, three magazines each. No rifles, not now, that would come later. Two gas masks, a canister with fitted tube, high-speed drill, small amount of C4 with det cord.
He tucked the pistol in the small of his back, the rest fit into his backpack. He hefted it and signaled to Dmitri.
Dmitri closed the trunk and fell into step beside him. Nikitin gave him his backpack. “Easy,” Nikitin murmured. “Nice and slow.”
They ambled toward the end of the peninsula, two men in sports clothes, out for a walk. Without hesitating, they walked through the huge two-story glass doors of La Torre.
His luck was holding, Nikitin thought. About time. They had encountered no one, not one car was on the road. The huge atrium was deserted except for one guard behind a U-shaped console.
Nikitin looked around with a faint smile on his lips, a connoisseur appreciating a well-designed building. Four security cameras in the corners, angled to cover the entire footage of the atrium. And two more vid cams over the elevators.
“Help you folks?” The security guard had a polite smile on his face, but he was young, fit and alert. He rose as Nikitin and Dmitri approached, one hand on the counter, the other loose at his side, right next to the Beretta in a holster.
An array of high-resolution monitors glowed on a shelf below the countertop.
Nikitin leaned on the chest-high counter with a smile, making sure he didn’t touch anything with his hands. The guard couldn’t see him reaching behind his back. “Yes,” he said, shaking his head ruefully, “I’m looking for a Mr. Darren Smith. He said he lived in Coronado Shores, in the La Torre condominium. Am I in the right place?”
“Yes, sir, you are,” the guard replied. “But I’m afraid we don’t have anyone living here by that—”
In a smooth practiced move, Nikitin brought the GSh up, firing point-blank at the bridge of the nose, straight through the neocortex. Pink and gray spray shot out behind his head and the guard slumped boneless to the floor, already dead.
“Name,”
Nikitin finished the sentence.
They didn’t need to talk. Both of them donned latex gloves that were in Dmitri’s backpack. Nikitin disconnected the monitors while Dmitri disposed of the body beneath the shelf. There was some blood spatter on the floor but you’d have to come right up to the security desk to see it. Nikitin nodded at Dmitri who walked briskly across the huge atrium, boot heels echoing on the marble floor. He threaded plastic restraints around the inside door handles and tightened them. The restraints were almost invisible from the outside. It would take 500 pounds of pressure to break them. The building would be cut off from the outside world for the short time it would take them to snatch Chloe Mason.
Anyone visiting or returning to the condo would see a missing security guard and locked doors and assume there’d been trouble and probably call 112.
No, this was America, he reminded himself. 911.
He studied the security camera system for a minute while Dmitri was taking care of the front doors. He was familiar with most security systems. This one was particularly upscale.
But not invulnerable.
He flipped a switch and raised his eyes to the four corners of the atrium. The LED lights next to the cameras were off.
Okay, the building was sealed and blind.
Phase two.
The Mason woman had been on the fourth floor, third apartment from the left. Ordinarily, he would have ascended to several floors above the apartment, then come down the stairwell, but time was tight. The security system was off but he had no idea whether there were two guards on duty. That was the problem with improvisation—no intel and no proper planning. So they just took the elevator up.
Outside the door of the apartment, Nikitin held out his hand and Dmitri placed an infrared scanner in it. Nikitin switched it on, then looked, frowning, at the screen. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
He walked quickly down the hallway, aiming the scanner, and found two people behind the doors and the walls of the apartments. One two doors down to the right, and the other behind the door of the last apartment to the left.
Nightfire: A Protectors Novel: Marine Force Recon Page 26